Keepin' Busy

Ahhhh...lapsing again...just haven't had much to say lately. This doesn't excuse my not reading, though, so please don't ditch me if I haven't been over to your blog in awhile.  I got a little nudge from my friend Karma, who has a gazillion other things to read beside my blog (she's finishing her B.A.) but who dropped me an email asking why I hadn't written lately.

Actually, I've sort of been busy. I've been working, for God's sake. Like, at a paying job, outside my home.

Twice I've subbed. Two whole days so far.  Frankly, I'm exhausted.  Have you ever taught kindergarten?  See, you know what I mean.

But I've also been doing my Julie McCoy thing with Kim's Book Signing and having a blast with that.  I love saying "I have a meeting", like I'm going to a glass-walled conference room on the 30th floor of some swank building downtown, where someone will bring me coffee and croissants while I impress bigwigs with my Powerpoint skills.

In reality, I'm walking over to Kim's house, to sit with her and her staff - that would be her friend Jacqueline, her hub Josh, and me -  around her kitchen table, each of us with our own travel mug of homemade coffee, scribbling notes on lined notebook paper and mostly shooting the shit about her trip to Hawaii.  (I've not once asked to hook the projector up to her TV; they don't know what they're missing.)  Seriously, though, we have planned an awesome day and I can't wait! I love being friends with a Practically Famous Author.  

And I've also been carting Jack and all his buddies all over the place from basketball to baseball and back again, and cheering like a lunatic at all the games - even though I appear to be the only mom doing it so loudly. Whatev. They need support. Last week, they lost 51-24 and I had to drive home with three teary-eyed boys in the back seat. 

I love that my kid is an athlete, though.  I'm all about being the soccer mom (God I hate that word) and their biggest cheerleader.  I was not, in any way, shape, or form, an athlete as a kid. In highschool, I couldn't even make the cheerleading squad because I thought all you had to do was yell and smile. I didn't realize you couldn't be fat and completely out of shape.  Total discrimination, I say. But I digress. 

Because of this, I kind of taught myself was forced to hate athletes.  It was the only defense I had against feeling like a total slug. As I got older, though, not being into sports became one of my big Life Regrets, especially now, when I struggle every day with staying active and eating healthy.  So when I popped out this kid who lives and breathes physical activity of all kinds, I felt like I had an opportunity to get it right.

Wait.  That came out wrong. That just painted me as the Mother Who Lives Vicariously Through Her Son, which I so am not.  I'm not sure I could be, if I tried. I guess I'm just enjoying sports for the first time in my life, and not feeling like I have to hate them all because they're out there and I'm not.

How can I live vicariously through Jack's sports when half the time I have to ask him to explain what he's doing out there?

Me: Are you playing point guard today?"

Jack (with great patience) : "Nope, Mom, not today. Today I'm a quarterback.